Country of residence

Hungary

Brief introduction

PhD candidate, Cultural Anthropology, 2005, ElTE

Education

MA in Cultural Anthropology, 2005, ELTE

Academic profile

As a cultural anthropologist I have been working with gypsy studies since 2000. I conducted a three month long fieldwork, among a gypsy group living in a small settlement in East-Hungary. Since then I have conducted further field research within that community as well as in other gypsy settlements. My main question how ‘Gypsyness’, gender and kinship influence each other in these community. Following ethnicity theories, ‘Gypsyness’ in my case does not denote an ethnic group, but describes possible spaces of identification and action, constraints  that determine and influence the life of certain people. In the thesis, I examine how these constraints and spaces relate to gender, the institution of marriage, the bearings of cousinly networks, how these things interact. How ‘Gypsyness’ can be lived through gender or how gender might help to ease the constraint of ‘Gypsyness’. A closely related question is how non kinship institutions such as school or workplace play their role in these relationships. I analyze the above questions in three different communities all of which can be found in rural environment in one of Hungary’s disadvantaged regions, Borsod County.

Publications

• “On the Borders of Gender. Mariage and Role of the „child” amongst Hungarian Gypsies.” Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Romany Studies. ed. Michael Stewart and Marton Rovid. CEU. pp. 108-123.
• “Transforming distinctions of the Gypsies in a Northern Hungarian Village” 2010. anBlokk 4. pp. 39-42. (with Kata Horváth)
• “Hidden potentials in “naming the Gypsy”: The transformation of the Gypsy-Hungarian distinction” 2010. anBlokk 4.  pp. 48-54.
• “The School and the Family: an Exlusive and Permissive Relationship”. Beszélő, 2008. 13/5., pp. 80-88.

Keywords

Gypsy, kinship, gender, ethnic relations

Contact

kovaicili@gmail.com browse members list